Tyagaraja Kriti Series- krti for today -aTu kArAdani -Raga Manoranjani

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SrI

SrI raghunandana parabraHmaNe namaH

Song aTu kArAdani

rAga manOranjani

In the kRti ‘aTu kAdar(A)ni’ – rAga manOranjani, SrI tyAgarAja asks Lord not to find fault with him.

Pallavi

aTu kArAd(a)ni palkan(a)bhimAnamu lEka pOyenA

Anupallavi

eTul(O)rtunu nE daya jUDa(v)ayya

E vElpu sEyu calamO telisi (aTu)

Charanam

vEda SAstr(O)paniSad-

viduDaina nijapu dArini

baTTi dAsuDaina nAdupai

n(e)pam(e)JcitE tyAgaraja nuta (aTu)

Gist

O Lord praised by this tyAgarAja! Are you left with no affection towards me even to tell that ‘That is not done’?

How shall I bear the grief? deign to show mercy me; I do not know which God is having malice towards me; having known (my plight), are you left with no affection towards me even to tell that ‘That is not done’?

What will happen if You find faults with me who, even though learned in vEdA, SAstra and upaniSad, has become Your devotee following the true path (of surrender)?

 

Word-by-word Meaning

P Are you left (pOyenA) with no (lEka) affection (abhimAnamu) towards me even to tell (palkanu) (palkanabhimAnamu) that (ani) ‘That (aTu) is not done (kA rAdu) (kArAdani)’?

A How (eTula) shall I (nE) bear (Ortunu) (eTulOrtunu) the grief? O Lord (ayya)! deign to show (jUDu) (jUDavayya) mercy (daya) me; I do not know which (E) God (vElpu) is having (sEyu) malice (calamO) towards me; having known (telisi) (my plight), are you left with no affection towards me even to tell that ‘That is not done’?

C What will happen if You find (eJcitE) faults (nepamu) (nepameJcitE) with me (nAdupai) who even though (aina) learned (viduDu) (viduDaina) in vEdA, SAstra and upaniSad (SAstrOpaniSad), has become Your devotee (dAsuDaina) following (paTTi) the true (nijapu) path (dArini) (of surrender)?

O Lord praised (nuta) by this tyAgarAja! are you left with no affection towards me even to tell me that ‘That is not done’?

 

Notes –

General – The context in which the kRti has been sung is not clear. Therefore, there may be errors in interpretation of the terms ‘aTu kArAdu’ in pallavi and ‘E vElpulu’ in anupallavi.

P aTu kArAdani – This is a colloquial usage in telugu (kA+rAdu) to say ‘this is not done’ or ‘it is prohibited’.

In the book of CR, this has been interpreted as “should you not intervene and find out which Devata is responsible for the accusation and tell him directly ‘it cannot be that’?†The context in which such an interpretation has been adopted is not known.

C viduDaina – In my humble opinion, the word ‘aina’ in ‘viduDaina’ would mean ‘even though’; the same word ‘aina’ in ‘dAsuDaina’ would mean ‘become’. Going by the spirit of tyAgarAja’s kRtis, ‘surrender’ has been given prime importance in comparison to the path of knowledge (as asserted in SrImad-bhagavad-gItA).

C nepameJcitE – Being a colloquial usage, grammatically, the sentence is not complete, but ends with a question mark with ‘nepameJcitE?’. Therefore, ‘what will happen’ has been added to complete the sentence.

Comments – Sri Govindaswami opines that ‘aTu kArAdani palka’ would refer to other Gods and not to tyAgarAja. Accordingly, the interpretation of pallavi would be – “Are you left with no affection towards me to tell (other Gods) that ‘That is not done’?â€

Additional Comments by Sri V. Sadagopan

Manornajani means that which pleases the mind. This is indeed a mind-pleasing raagam, This is an upAnga Raagam which omits GhAndhAram in the AarOhaNam. The AarOhaNa/AvarOhaNa kramam are:

Sa ri ma pa dha ni Sa / Sa ni dha pa ma ga ri sa

There are 50 raagams with a suffix of Ranjani as pointed out by Dr.P.P.Narayana Swamy.

The Manoranajni comes in three flavors. Two are derived from Maanavati MeLam: Sampoorana (ThyagarAja) and asampoorna (Dikshitar) varieties. The third one is a Janya raagam of Karahara Priyaa (ShAdava vakra sampoorNam).

The audio-visual impressions on listening to the Manoranjani rAga Kriti of Saint ThyagarAja is captured in the following video by two violin vidhvAns:

In this kriti arising from the amarsha-rOsha-rOshOkti mood, the Saint asks the Lord why He is not showing much interest in him and how he can bear the Lord’s indifference. He begs the Lord to display His compassion towards him. He identifies himself as one who has followed the Bhagavath sAstrams and the right royal Vedic path and expresses his dismay about being treated indifferently by the all knowing Lord. SwamigaL wants to know whether any devatai had complained to the Lord about his conduct as unbecoming and asks the Lord as to why He had not intervened and told that devatai that â€it can not be that†(it could not be true).

SwamigaL indirectly refers to the five limbs of SaraNAgaty: (1) AanukUlya Sankalpam (Doing things that please the Lord) (2) PrAtikoolya Varjanam (desisting from doing things that displeases the Lord: trespasses against the Bhagavath Saastrams) (3) Mahaa VisvAsam (total faith in the Lord as the unfailing Protector (4) KaarpaNyam and (5) gOptruva VaraNam. The charaNa vaakyams refer to the VedOkta SaraNagati (nijapu dhArini BaDDi dhAsuDaina).

DhAsan, Oppiliappan Koil Varadachari Sadagopan

AUDIO:

Rendering by Smt MLVasanthakumari

http://www.ibiblio.org/sadagopan/tyagaraja_kritis_project/audio/atukagaradeni_MLV.mp3

NOTE: Those who prefer to have a PDF or WORD document copy of this write-up can download either of the format from the following links:

WORD doc:

http://www.ibiblio.org/sadagopan/tyagaraja_kritis_project/word_docs/atukaradani_manoranjani.doc

PDF:

http://www.ibiblio.org/sadagopan/tyagaraja_kritis_project/pdf/atukaradani_manoranjani.pdf